living places 8 point plan

Having come together with a common aim the living places partners agreed a business plan consisting of eight actions. The overarching objective is to embed sport and culture in communities, drawing on the combined expertise and available resources of the living places partners. The action plan, agreed in November in 2007, is as follows:

1. living places will create a single portal for evidence and best practice. At www.living-places.org.uk

The site provides an introduction to what living places is and who its members are, and it sets out the case for culture and sport, using clear evidence. A section on ‘living places in action’ focuses on the work of the regional partnerships and priority places, and the resources section provides links to useful data and news sources, as well as relevant on and offline resources from the partnership and wider stakeholders. A password protected ‘Partner Area’ provides space for sharing internal meeting notes and workplans, as well as details of events and training. The website has been designed to be scaleable, to allow for the Culture Planning Tools & Guidance to be added in due course, (CPT & G) an online directory of existing and new tools, guidance and advice for developers, planners and regeneration specialists, looking to integrate culture into their work.

2. Culture Planning Tools and Guidance

The Culture Planning Toolkit (CPT&G) will be a combination of new and existing tools available online via the living places website. The long term aim of the CPT&G is to offer planners, developers, policy makers and regeneration experts a ‘one stop shop’ for integrating culture into their developments.

3. living places will support guidance for communities, to help people bring appropriate cultural and sporting infrastructure and activities into their own areas

living places is keen that provision is decided from the bottom up, not dictated from the top down, but we will not be campaigning with communities for particular types of provision. Instead, we will help communities with a route map that guides them through the public, private and voluntary sector avenues they might explore to get support, we will also suggest how communities can best make their arguments in a compelling way.

4. living places will commission new research to establish a more robust evidence base for culture

We will only commission new research once we have carefully evaluated what is available already. We will do that as we assemble information and evidence for the living places website. The website will grow during 2008.

5. Bring the resources of our members to bear to help practitioners in the field

We want to inspire people working in sustainable communities to consider culture and sport in their work. Through the living places portal, our members will be on hand to give help and advice to people on the ground. Through our priority places initiative (see 7 below) we will develop a better understanding of the way in which culture and sustainable communities policies relate to each other. We can then make sure they work more closely together towards common goals.

6. living places will explore new ways to provide training and skills to sustainable communities practitioners who want to use culture and sport in their work

Rather than re-invent the wheel, we’re hoping to build appropriate cultural elements into existing training programmes, and will work with our partners such as the Homes and Communities Agency and others about what would be most appropriate.

7. Target 5 priority places

living places can’t do everything at once. Instead, the partners have decided to focus attention on five places that will help them understand the role of culture within communities of varying scales. The initiative is helping living places gain a greater understanding of the barriers that prevent culture being built into communities and the policy solutions that can be developed to breakdown those barriers.

The priority places identified are:

1. Thames Gateway;
2. The South West Region;
3. Corby;
4. Partnership for Urban South Hampshire (PUSH);
5. Pennine Lancashire.

All these places have shown an appetite to explore how culture can be incorporated in housing and regeneration. They cover a range of spatial scales, so are allowing living places to explore appropriate ways to solve a wide range of policy problems. They also boast a range of cultural assets and activities with very different geographic reaches. Some are of regional significance, and draw people from miles around. Others have a city-wide or more local impact.

The priority places initiative focuses on the following issues:

• Understanding: We aim to raise understanding about the contribution that culture can make at a range of different spatial levels.
• Promotion: We will practical use of culture in places of concern or importance to the sustainable communities agenda.
• Best practice: We highlight and share good practice between priority places and other places and share learning emerging from new ways of working.
• Research: We undertake new research and evaluation in the Priority Places and share that across the planning and regeneration and cultural sectors.
• Partnership: We work to understand how cultural partners work together at varying spatial levels, and how they relate to other partners and delivery agents.
• Support: We support local government cultural services improvement activity where appropriate.
• Showcasing: We demonstrate the benefit to places of the cultural agencies and places working together.
• Learning: We learn how we can develop multiple cultural solutions in different places according to the policy challenges of each place.

8. living places will encourage greater and wider participation in culture

living places is about added value. Partners told us they wanted a common message about what culture is and how it can be integrated into places – living places helps us deliver this. As agencies we do have differing core objectives but on this campaign we have something shared to contribute. For instance in the Thames Gateway we have been able to provide a joint culture response to the emerging plans and to work collectively on things like the CABE-led work on identity in the Gateway. By having a collective voice it is easier for partners to engage with the sector (which is quite diverse) and provide advice and expertise on the specific development issues.